


we're one of the things that can't die

by YaddleLives



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Force Dyad (Star Wars), Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, force ghosts bc why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21907528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YaddleLives/pseuds/YaddleLives
Summary: "You’re impossible to get rid of, Ben.”“And you’re not easy to find."[or: even in death, Ben won't leave her alone.]
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 10
Kudos: 199





	we're one of the things that can't die

**Author's Note:**

> okay so. thought of this during the premier of Rise of Skywalker. had to write it. it wouldn't let me sleep.
> 
> i don't write heterosexuality, but i did it here bc i couldn't NOT. so i created this account to post it so that i didn't have to put it on my normal account with my precious lesbians.
> 
> anyway, i'm a slut for this movie. it was so good. 
> 
> this takes place between the little, cute victory hug at the end and Rey going to Tatooine (a little after that, too)
> 
> spoilers ahoy for that if you care. enjoy.

“Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

_\- Emily Brontë_

...

“You made this sound so much harder than it actually is.”

“It _was_ hard. Do you know how long it took me to _find_ an actual crystal?”

“And yet you only managed to find a broken one.”

Rey looks up from her mostly-assembled saber and grins, tongue poking through her teeth. It’s important to remind him that she’s joking. Sometimes he gets sulky when he thinks her teasing is serious and then she doesn’t see him for days. 

From his slumped position on the edge of her bed, Ben narrows his eyes and shakes his head, but there’s a tilt to the corner of his lips that he can’t hide. It’s her favorite smile of his because it’s easy and careless and she’s certain that he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. 

“Would you like to do this without my help?” he bluffs and it’s Rey’s turn to fake a serious expression.

“That depends on whether you begin helping me or not.”

He huffs and throws his hands up in the air, posture slumping and shrinking the size of him on the bed. “I’m the one who found those schematics on Ahch-To and brought them all the way back to you and this is the thanks I get.”

“How long could it have taken you? Less than a minute?” Rey teases, liking the way his face scrunches up with each furthering blow. 

Things are simple now—much simpler than she’d ever dared to hope they could be—and she likes days like this, when she can exist quietly in her quarters, far from the messy and occasionally chaotic things that accompanies the others’ attempts to form a new Galactic Alliance. While Poe and Finn have been taking great pride in visiting with diplomats from neighboring systems and discussing trade agreements and the wrangling of the new peaceful era—how to turn it into something _sustainable_ —Rey prefers to live within the quiet and hidden places that she’s found after everything. 

It had taken her a while after Exegol to grow strong again, to come back to herself. Finn hovered, yes, always asking if there was anything she needed, anything he could do and she’d say no, no. She didn’t need anything. Just time. Only time. So that’s what they’d given her. Time and space and room to fill herself back up with who she once was and who she now has to become. 

But even now, healed as she may be, she still prefers the silence. The solitude. She can walk the halls of the base, take meals with Poe and Finn and the other rowdy and relieved others. She’ll sit quietly with BB-8, letting him circle her and see for himself that she’s fine. She’s better. Whatever the definition of that word may include, she’s getting better every day.

She has Ben. Not always and not the way she may wish for, but he’s there at times to help her, to guide her, to speak in soft tones when she needs to or laugh when she doesn’t. It’s something. Not enough but _something._ And for nearly all her life she had _nothing_ , so it means all the more.

Even now, when he’s frowning at her, trying to gauge how serious she is. He’s getting better at that: reading her. When he first began visiting and spending time with her, there had been a lot to learn, a lot of distance and pain to work past, but it gets easier to breathe every day and Rey doesn’t quite know how to thank him for that.

So she teases him instead.

“You’re making fun of me,” Ben decides, tone flat and deadpan. 

“I would never,” Rey says and she turns back to the table in the corner of her room where all of these things she’s spent so long searching for and finding are finally starting to come together.

“You and I both know that’s not true.”

The yellow crystal slots perfectly into its chamber and the bottom grip attaches with no trouble at all. At her shoulder, Rey feels a loose buzzing, a vibration in the air as Ben comes to stand over her, watching her work. His touch chills her shoulder, even through the layers of fabric still separating them, but she leans into it as she screws in the power cell. 

There it is. Finished. She can’t remember the last time this particular feeling swept through her chest. Not as broad as finding home again in the arms of Finn and Poe as the others yelled and cheered in victory around them, but close. Like throwing Luke’s saber in that wide arch and tugging it back to her hand for the very first time. She tilts her head up a little to look at Ben as he stares down at the finished product proudly.

“Don’t get cocky yet,” he tells her, the words cool and airy as they brush through her hair. “Try it first.”

Rey rolls her eyes and pushes her chair back, getting to her feet. Ben steps back to give her enough space and she turns towards him as she feels the weight of her blade in her hand for the very first time. Already, it feels like a simple extension of her arm. As if it might have been there her entire life. Luke’s blade had made her feel powerful and certain, yes, but this was something else entirely.

Throwing one quick glance at Ben, who is watching her anxiously, she presses the activation lever with her thumb and hopes for the best. Immediately, a hum travels from her grip and up her arm, spreading through her veins like something warm and familiar. The blade itself shines brightly in the dim light of the room, hot and _perfect_ as she gives it a practice swing.

Ben is smiling now and when she hits the activation lever again to extinguish it, he crosses the distance between them in two easy strides. “It’s perfect,” he says. He holds out his hand and she gives it to him, watches as he turns it over and over, testing its weight, testing its feel. He gives it back. “You did it.”

“I did, didn’t I?” They’re close now and that buzzing feeling is back, the Force crackling between them as it always has. It makes her feel dizzy and strong in a combination that’s never failed to leave her the slightest bit dazed. “You’re proud of me, aren’t you?”

Ben rolls his eyes. “I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

He looks like he’s about to argue that further, but there’s a knock at her door then that startles them both. Rey turns her head towards it and waits.

“Rey? You wanna eat something? I haven’t seen you all day. Just wanna make sure you’re good.”

It’s Finn. Of course it is. A wave of fondness washes over her at his unwavering concern. 

She turns back to Ben. “I should probably go,” she says. “They worry.”

He nods in understanding, but there’s something else there as well and though she can’t name it, she can feel the ragged edge of that same emotion in her own chest, catching on each heartbeat. “Of course. I should…” He pauses like he’s trying to find the right words. “I should go.”

This is how it always is when they have to say goodbye. Rey wonders if it will ever get any easier.

“You’ll come back?” She doesn’t mean for it to be a question, but it’s impossible to keep that wavering hope out of her voice.

He smiles her second favorite smile: the one he does when he’s trying to reassure her. “If that’s what you want,” he says, like she doesn’t already know.

“I want.”

That smile again, wider this time. “Then of course.”

There’s a pause then, just the two of them looking at each other, neither of them willing to break the spell. But then Finn does it for them, knocking again.

“Rey?” he calls. 

She knows that in just a moment, he’ll try to open the door so she’s quick to call out, “Just a moment!” 

“Well…” she says, hating the way Ben’s face falls just the slightest bit. 

But he says, “Soon,” in a voice she can’t help but believe. A pause, and then, “I am proud of you, you know.”

Rey smiles and wants to reach out to touch him, but hesitates as she always does because she doesn’t know what she’ll find if she does. “I know.”

Just another beat, one breathing moment where they’re both still drinking in the sight of one another, and then in a fade of blue light, he’s gone. Rey stands there trying to catch her breath. It’s harder each time to see him go like that. It had been difficult with Luke, yes, all those months ago, but this is different. This is Ben and each time he arrives, she is less and less willing to let him go.

Finn knocks again, pulling her back into reality swiftly. She shakes her head and blinks away the burning sting of tears. 

“Coming!” she calls, and then she is setting her saber down on her bed and turning to leave.

.

Years ago when she was still stranded on Jakku—before she knew about things like _friends_ and _destiny_ and the _Force_ —a scavenger woman named Mashra told her an Aqualish phrase that was impossible to translate into Basic without losing its original meaning. 

_Higanda ta voodi_.

The closest Mashra could explain:

_To live beyond yourself._

It was ever a mystery and Rey spent the hours Mashra paid her to scavenge sellable parts from old ships thinking about this. When Mashra said it, she was always speaking about Rey’s parents and her spending each of her days waiting for them to return. Sometimes she would think that Mashra meant to say that her parents continued to live inside of her, and it wasn’t until much later—when she learned of their true fate—that she understood what she must have meant:

Alone and abandoned as she was, the hope that Rey spent all those years grasping carried her away from Jakku, through the stars, to wherever she imagined they were. 

Now, she thinks of the phrase in terms of Ben. The energy between them that flutters strong and fast even now. He is life beyond herself. And she with him.

Even in death, Ben is hard to get rid of.

.

Some days are easier than others. 

She’ll be laughing at something Chewie’s just said or arguing over something that doesn’t matter with Poe and she’ll just... _forget_.

Forget what they went through—the pain and the hollow and the way it felt to feel the life inside of her slipping away. She’ll forget that Leia isn’t waiting for her somewhere, isn’t _here_ to see the way that things have gone, to taste the bright and bitter tang of _life after_. Luke will be just around the corner and Han will be in the Falcon with his feet kicked up, watching all of them with that starry look in his eye. 

And then she’ll remember. Later. When she’s alone. It will all wash over her at once.

The _ache_ she’d felt once Luke had gone; Leia’s last breath slicing right through the middle of her. And Ben’s eyes when she’d come back to herself, the way his arms felt around her. The salt of tears on his lips when she kissed him and the way he’d smiled and laughed breathily. Relieved. Happy. _Himself_.

And how he’d fallen back against the dirt and left her entirely.

Those are the nights when he comes to see her. She’ll lie awake in her bed thinking of that clear, blue ocean and the clouds just above. Trying to calm herself. Trying to make sense of it all. But then—

A flash of light. Ben’s humming presence. 

He’ll sit on the edge of her bed and look down at her and sometimes he’ll speak—sometimes he’ll tell stories of his boyhood _before_ ; stories told to him by his parents and Luke of their adventures and victories. But most of the time, he just sits there silently and lets her cry, his cool, translucent hand on hers, as she tries to explain what she’s feeling. What she’s thinking.

How she had been so stuck in the presumption of her own loss that she hadn’t ever prepared for this:

A life full of love and acceptance. A life where she’d _won_.

And Ben will listen, his eyes kind and soft as she says all of this and she’ll realize each time that he isn’t quiet because he doesn’t understand.

He’s quiet because he _knows_.

.

It’s Finn, of course—lovely and loyal Finn, the first person to ever stand by her side unwaveringly—who’s the first to figure it out. They’re walking together, slowly and without a destination, down a well-worth path on Ajan Kloss, just beyond the base. It’s their first night _back_ from visiting the Carida system, who has only just managed to hunt down the last of the First Order’s defendants and rid their planets of them and lightspeed never fails to make Rey bone-tired. Weary. 

Finn is sympathetic, keeping their pace unhurried, as they walk along in relative silence. Behind them, they can hear a dozen or so happy conversations as they buzz louder and louder into the soft light of the evening. Poe must have told them of their successes—the reinforced trade routes between Carida and Abednedo. Another victory. Tighter threads drawing the systems closer together.

It’s edging near the planet’s rain season and the wind is cold. Finn tugs his jacket off and drapes it over Rey’s shoulders wordlessly. She throws him a thankful look. Keeps walking.

“It’s Ren, isn’t it?” he asks without looking at her. “That’s why you’ve been so distant. He’s been visiting you, hasn’t he?”

Rey isn’t sure how to answer that. Although she had never exactly taken measures to hide the company she’s been keeping in the empty spaces of her life, she’d never really expected anyone to come to the correct conclusion on their own. But this is Finn, she remembers. There are times when she is certain that he can feel her just as deeply as she can feel him.

“Ben,” she corrects quietly. “And yes.”

There’s a pause, a hesitancy, and she knows that Finn is simply remembering all the things Ben chose to become before coming back to himself. It’s hard not to. She knows better than anyone. But Kylo Ren is dead and he has been for a very long time. There is no lingering piece of him that exists in the Ben who watches over her.

“You could have told us,” Finn says, and there’s hurt in his voice that Rey wants to wish away. “You could have told _me_.”

“I didn’t—” she begins, choosing her words carefully, but he cuts her off before she can finish.

“You didn’t think we’d understand.” He looks at her and she nods and looks away. “Well, you’re right. I _don’t_ understand.”

Rey swallows thickly and comes to a standstill, right there in the thick leaves of the forest. “Finn, there are things that I—”

“That I don’t know,” he cuts in. “Yeah. You’ve said that before. I just want to make sure that you’re...being _careful_.”

He’s standing in front of her, looking smaller than he actually is, as if he’s waiting for her to dismiss him at any moment. To yell or scream or tell him that it’s none of his business. As if she would ever do any of those things to _him_. She reaches out and grabs one of his hands in both of her own, taking a step closer.

“Those things he did,” she begins, “and those things that he... _was_. That’s not him.” Finn opens his mouth, an argument on the tip of his tongue, but she keeps going before he can interrupt again. “He...He gave his life to save me.”

Finn nods, but the muscles in his jaw are tense and he won’t meet her eyes directly. “I know he did. I know. I’m just—”

“Looking out for me,” she interrupts and relief blossoms in her chest when he returns her soft smile. “I know. But you don’t have to worry about Ben.” She squeezes Finn’s hand again and begins walking again without letting go, this time towards Base. “He’s just looking out for me too.”

And there’s really nothing Finn can say against that.

.

“If you’re going to lie next to me can you at least...breathe or something?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because it’s strange. It...I know you don’t... _have_ to or...I don’t like it. That’s all.”

“Like that?”

“Yes. Much better.”

.

“Generations, then? That’s what he said.”

“He said many things.”

“Would things have been different if we’d found one another sooner, do you think?”

“It’s worthless to ponder ‘what-ifs’, Rey.”

“When we were younger or...in lives other than this one?”

“You’re speaking about generations. Before the Republic?”

“Or during or after or anywhere. As different people. Do you think it would be the same?”

“I think that in any life you and I would still be lying somewhere just as we are now.”

“I think so too. You’re impossible to get rid of, Ben.”

“And you’re not easy to find. I would have spent every one of those lives looking for you.”

“But you’d find me?”

“Yes, Rey. In any life. I’d find you.”

.

The visions don’t come as often anymore. Towards the end of the war and before they had even dared to hope for victory, they came often. Hazy images that felt more like memories. Sometimes they showed her things that happened, but many times the things she saw served as a warning of a path she should not take and she was always careful to keep them at the front of her mind. 

What wakes her one night when Ben is not there to watch over her is not a vision. It is not a prediction or a warning or a memory. It is an event—one that took place, yes, but not when she had been present. She wakes alone, her skin covered in a thin sheen of sweat as her eyes burn with tears, the sound of her mother’s dying cries. It’s not that she hasn’t heard those before. She had—when she first held that dagger and later, in the cold and sterile light of Kylo Ren’s chambers as every muscle, every aching tendon, fought to push him _back_. To silence him.

But the vision she has is not hazy or unclear. It isn’t an echo at all. In it, she watches as her parents lie to protect her; as that blade is pushed into her father’s stomach; as he falls to the floor of Ochi’s ship, his hands covered in his own rushing blood. She hears her mother call out for him, clutch at his body as it collapses. She sees Ochi slice into her mother next and she watches as she too falls. She sees the both of them—her only family by _blood_ ; the parents she spent her entire life waiting for—lying there lifelessly in a pool of their own stark red blood, eyes lifeless and blank and looking nowhere.

Rey sits at the edge of her bed and tries to catch her breath. Tries to come down from the storm of sounds and images flooding her mind. Deep breathes. In...and out. In...and out.

When her legs feel strong enough to hold her weight, she wraps herself in her sleet-grey robes and leaves her room behind. She wanders through the empty halls of the base, the quiet buzzing night in the leaves and the wet dirt just beyond their roofs and walls. 

Her parents are dead. This isn’t anything she didn’t already know. But to assume and then have it confirmed that they’re dead is much different than watching them die. If there were a way to turn back time, to take those images from her mind, she would not hesitate to do so.

In the wide, high-ceilinged room filled with tables and chairs that are always filled with people talking and laughing and eating these days, Rey sits down on a cold metal chair and curls up into herself. Sleep will not be coming tonight. She wonders if it will ever come again at all.

This is the first night since everything came to an end that she has needed Ben’s company and he hasn’t come. How she longs for his cold embrace, the pressure of a touch that—by all rights—should not find her. He would speak soothing words, something to calm her or to help her make sense of these jumbling emotions and thoughts. Or perhaps he would say nothing. Perhaps he wouldn’t need to do anything more than pull her in and softly hum that lullaby he claims Leia sang to him when he was a child.

But he is gone, so Rey is alone.

Time passes. She isn’t sure how much, but she does not move. Eventually the skies beyond the windows begin to lighten into a deep blue that paints into a soft orange as the star around which Ajan Kloss orbits begins to spin into view. She watches, chin rested on her knee, arms wrapped around her legs to pull them back to her chest.

“And here I thought you only haunted the place in broad daylight.”

She turns her head to find Poe standing just inside the room’s entrance. He looks bedraggled and half asleep, his hair a handsome mess as a wayward curl moves with every blink of his right eye. Still, the grey shirt he is wearing is clean and pressed and, from where she’s sitting, it looks like he may have even shined his boots. 

Diplomacy has certainly led him to look more respectable.

“There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” Rey returns and Poe smirks at her, swaggers over and leans against the table she is sitting across from.

“Now _that_ I believe.”

They smile at one another, friendly and affectionate. This is what they do: 

Poe needles and Rey chides.

He’s one of the best friends she has ever had, trumped only by Finn and merely in terms of the time spent together.

“Finn’s been worried about you lately,” he says like it’s nothing. Just Finn being Finn.

“He’s always worried about me,” she points out and he shrugs in acknowledgment.

“Sure. I just want to make sure he’s not onto something, that’s all.”

She looks away, back up at the sky. The shadows are shortening by the second and the creatures in the trees have grown louder in their morning calls. “I feel lost,” she admits, making sure to keep the confession at little more than a whisper. “Everyone has something worthwhile that they’re doing. You and Finn have been forging new alliances with other systems and rebuilding old ones. Lieutenant Connix set off with Rose and Beaumont to shut down all the remaining First Order stations.” She sighs, meeting Poe’s sympathetic eyes. “Even BB-8 is busy, setting off every day with D-O. I just feel...like what I’m doing isn’t enough.”

Poe is quiet for a long moment and, though she looks away again, she can feel him watching her, scripting himself for whatever he’s going to say. Rey has known him long enough to understand his deep bench of reassuring speeches—the mix-and-match of hopeful phrases blended together to fit any situation. He means well, she knows. But she isn’t sure that it will do _her_ much good. Not now.

But Poe surprises her. He comes over to sit down beside her and leans his elbows down to rest on his thighs so that they can look at one another. “Yeah,” he says. “I get that. When you spend so long following orders and knowing exactly what you’re working towards, it’s hard to figure out how to do everything once you’re on your own.” He scrubs a hand through his hair thoughtfully. “When Leia...I didn’t know _what_ to do. My whole life, it feels like, she was there to guide me, to tell me what I should be fighting for and how I should be fighting for it.”

“Yeah,” Rey breathes in agreement, prompting a wry smile from Poe.

“But...what I’m doing now—what _all_ of us are doing now—is just...using what we’ve been taught a-and... _told_ ...to pave the way,” he says, sitting back up. “I don’t know _anything_ about politics, Rey. I mean…” He puffs air past his lips in a noise of self-pity. “It’s _bad_ some days.” He laughs so Rey laughs and the tension begins to drift away. “But even if she never...sat me down and _told_ me how to do this, Leia was teaching me every single day. Just like she taught you. Just like _Luke_ taught you.”

And Rey knows that he’s right. She knows where she comes from and what she stands for—the sacrifices and the solemnity that runs through her veins like quicksilver. She is the last of the Jedi. She is _all_ of the Jedi. And if she does not continue their legacy, there will be no one else to do it.

But it’s the first step that is always the hardest to make.

“If you ever repeat this to anyone, I’ll swear you were lying,” Poe begins, a teasing lilt to his words, “but you’re _strong,_ Rey. Like your _parents_ were strong. Like _Leia_ was strong. Whatever needs to be done ...you're the one who can do it.” His hand comes over to grab hers loosely, the gesture warm and fraternal. “But you’ve got to acknowledge that some things have to end in order to make way for new things.”

Rey looks up at him—this stubborn, _difficult_ man that she loves so much—and doesn’t have the words to thank him. For anything. All of it. There’s something flickering in his eyes that reminds her so deeply of Leia that she nearly can’t breathe for a second, so she reaches out and wraps him into a firm hug, tucking her face into his shoulder.

“And you’re not alone,” he whispers, his hand rubbing soothing circles on her back through the thick fabric of her robes. “Me...Finn...Chewie. Even BB-8. We’ll always be there for you.”

She pulls back and cups his cheek with one hand, looking at him long and hard, trying to paint this moment into her memory. “I know,” she says. “Thank you.”

Poe lifts his own hand to cover the one she has on his face and squeezes. “Is that as good as Ben would’ve put it?” 

He asks it like it’s nothing, but her stomach bottoms out in an instant. “I don’t—” she begins, but he shakes his head to stop her before she can come up with a proper denial.

“Finn’s not great at the whole...secrets thing,” he tells her and she’s waiting for the inevitable blow, that judgment that will accompany his recognition of hers and Ben’s connection. It doesn’t come. Instead, he says, “I’m not going to pretend to understand it. But if...if it’s really _him_ — If he’s really helping you then that’s all I need to know.”

Rey hugs him again, shorter this time, and when she pulls away she keeps her hands resting on his shoulders. “He is,” she says. “He helps.”

Poe nods. “You can handle yourself,” he tells her. “But if that changes, you come to me. Can you kick a Force ghost’s ass?”

Rey is still laughing two minutes later when they stumble back out into morning stumble of others, his arm wrapped around her shoulders.

.

“I hope for Dameron’s sake it never has to come to that.”

“Why?”

“I learned a lot from my mother, too, and one of the things she taught me was how to throw a punch.”

“She did _not_ teach you that.”

“Not exactly, no. But I’ve seen her do it and it’s all in your knees.”

“Your _knees_?”

“Yes, your— Here, stand up. I’ll show you.”

.

“I can’t rebuild all of it on my own. How can one person do that?”

“One person _can’t_. But you have others who will help you. Support you. You’re not alone, Rey.”

“People keep saying that, but it doesn’t feel true.”

“You _aren’t_. Your world is filled with people who care and who want to help. All you have to do is ask.”

“Will _you_ help me then?”

“Me? You want _my_ help building the new Jedi Order. I don’t—”

“I know what you’re going to say, Ben, so don’t say it. You’re different now. You were different _then_. If there’s anyone I need on my side in this, it’s you.”

“Then of course I will. You know that. I just—”

“Don’t worry about that now. Just...be with me.”

“I _am_ with you. I’m sitting right here.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that and we are going to sit here in silence and watch the sun set. Is that alright with you?”

“Yes. You say that like I would ever say no.”

.

She makes the decision two days later and tells Ben her plans as she sits far out in the heat of the woods, sitting squarely on the ground, her back resting against the tree behind her. Ben is sitting across from her and it’s always different to see him like this in the light—he glows differently, more purely almost, at night. Here the shape of him seems dulled and distant.

“I think it’s time we put them to rest,” she says. “They deserve that.”

Ben is quiet, his gaze fixed somewhere to the left of her. After a moment he nods a few times and meets her eyes again. “Yes,” he says. “They do.”

“I thought we could go tomorrow,” she says, his agreement balming over her hesitation. 

But: “We?”

Rey frowns. “Yes. You and I,” she says, as if that weren’t obvious.”

Again, Ben is silent but this time his eyes never leave hers. “No. No, I think _you_ should do it. Alone.”

“But you’re their family,” she argues, confused. The Force is bubbling at the base of her spine and she feels like she could bring the tree just behind her cracking down onto the forest floor at any moment.

“You’re more family to either of them than I’ve ever been.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Rey says and the frustration inside of her is spiking and spiking. “You’re her son. You’re Luke’s _nephew_. I’m not going to do it without you.”

At once, Ben whirls to his feet, his shoulders stiff and his face dark. “Then you won’t be doing it all.”

She jumps up too, eager to stop him, eager to find out _why_ —

But then he fades so quickly that he’s gone between one blink and the next.

.

So she goes alone, packing up early the next morning, BB-8 rolling excitedly back and forth at her feet.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come?” Finn asks, his expression earnest and calm.

Rey smiles at him stiffly, rests a hand on his shoulder. “I should go alone.”

She feels him deflate beneath her hand, but they’ve had this same discussion so many times before that he is beginning to learn when to quit. He nods and hugs her tightly for a few seconds. “Be safe,” he says when he pulls away.

“You too.”

“May the Force be with you.”

“Finn,” Rey says, turning around to look at him from halfway up the Falcon’s ramp.

“Yeah?” he asks hopefully.

She shakes her head. “Don’t...Don’t say it like that,” she says. “You sound _ridiculous_ when you say it like that.”

The last thing he says before the ramp pulls off and she’s too far away to hear him is, “Oh...sorry.”

.

The air on Tatooine is sweltering and then suns _blinding,_ even as she makes her descent just as they begin to lower over the horizon. The farm is isolated, tucked far away from Anchorhead on a long, yawning stretch of land that’s impossible to see beyond the waves of heat coming up off the sand. When she finally steps out of the ship and onto the ground—when she finally gets a good look at the place that made the man who helped to make her—it’s nothing like she imagined it would be.

It’s emptier. Hollower. The air around it trembles with the memory of its losses. It buzzes at her fingertips and fills her chest like thin smoke even as she slides her way down into the main part of the homestead. 

There are ghosts that linger here. She can feel them around every corner, can even hear a few of them, just the ringing and distant echoes of the people this place once belonged to. The floor of the kitchen is covered in sand and she wanders down the narrow halls, running her fingers against the stone walls as she goes. There’s a small bedroom with a narrow bed, an old blaster lying on the desk in the corner, half assembled and surrounded by forgotten tools. 

Luke’s room, she decides, and lingers for a moment.

There is _pain_ in the techroom tucked away from the main living pit. Something died here once and the feeling of it comes to her in snatches that leave the copper taste of blood on her tongue. It takes a minute for her to recognize the fire of emotion and its source, but the man it consumed had spoken to her at the end, as she lay there at Palpatine’s feet watching her friends die above her. 

_Anakin_.

Salt then, like a wayward tear on her lips. She keeps moving.

Eventually, she makes her way back up to where the air has begun to cool as the light of day fades. Whatever spirits that surrounded her down below begin to pull away, slow and peaceful. Quieter than before. 

Rey closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Holds it for a moment. Lets it go.

And then she pulls both Luke and Leia’s sabers from her bag.

.

“Skywalker, then, huh?”

Ben is waiting for her in the cockpit, leaned back in the pilot’s seat—a vision of his father as he once had been. Rey stands just outside, blinking at him and trying to make sure she isn’t imagining this. Sensing her hesitation, he stands and takes a step closer.

“Couldn’t let the name die,” Rey tells him and she’s expecting a snarky remark, but he smiles at her instead. Like he had in her arms just before he’d gone.

“It suits you,” he tells her.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, unable to bite the question back any longer.

Ben’s expression is twisted with remorse. “You were right,” he says. “I should be here with you.”

That cold ache in her bones that settled in his absence begins to thaw. 

“You always seem to show up when I need you,” she says. “Well...mostly.”

“You’re always calling for me when I come,” Ben says and he reaches out to wrap those cold, cold fingers around her wrist, bring her palm flat to his cold, cold chest. As she always is when they touch, Rey is stunned by how solid he feels. How _there_. “I assumed you meant to.”

“I don’t mean to,” she tells him, taking a step nearer. “But I’m glad you can hear me.”

That smile again. She feels her knees weaken.

“Me too,” he says.

Rey thinks she can feel the Force sigh in relief around them, the things that have made her sliding between the things that make him. They are together again. Two as one.

Balanced out.

Finally.

“It’s quiet now,” she whispers and then worries for an instant that he won’t understand.

But he does. He says, “I wasn’t sure if you could feel that, too.”

“I could,” she tells him. “I _can_.” Her vision blurs with tears that won’t fall.

“I loved you before I found you,” Ben says, bringing one of those cool hands up to cup her cheek and draw her closer. “I was never meant to be apart from you.”

“Then stay with me,” Rey laughs and falls into him as he falls into her.

.

“Say it again. Say you mean it.”

“I love you. I’m _for_ you. There’s only ever been _us_.”

“I know, Ben. I know.”

...

**Author's Note:**

> title from "She" by Fickle Friends.
> 
> the planets are all real and stuff, but i wrote this really quick and did the MINIMUM amount of research for it, so give me the benefit of the doubt. Mashra is real and Rey liked her. 
> 
> that's how force ghosts work right? it is now. 
> 
> hasta la pasta, friends.


End file.
